Page 249

Emotion crashes through me so powerfully I go dizzy.

Ashby's arms tighten immediately.

"Easy, sweetheart," he murmurs, amusement threading through the concern. "If you're going to faint at least give us a warning. I've got a reputation to protect."

A shaky laugh escapes me. "What reputation?"

"See? This is exactly the kind of disrespect I have to put up with," he jokes.

Briggs arrives and hunkers down in front of me. "You look so beautiful…" he says, the words rough around the edges, "…it's actually getting hard to think."

His hand glides along my thigh, setting off small fireworks under my skin. The teasing fades from his expression, replaced by tenderness.

Breathing becomes harder.

Ashby bites my earlobe with a growl that rolls through my neck, and I snap. Muscle, bone, and the softest parts of me uncoil all at once, releasing so fast it feels violent. Briggs drags his tongue up the inside of my forearm in long, sensuous strokes, and the sight of him nearly undoes me. Need twists through my chest.

They keep me upright between them. Ashby cages my ribs in a possessive grip while Torin stokes my hair, his wild calm threading through me even as everything else threatens to spin apart.

Briggs kneels in front of me, touching me with fierce, trembling reverence that makes my stomach clench. My body answers them desperately. Slick, hungry, trembling with a need so intense it feels dangerous. Their hands and mouths and teeth strip away every layer until I'm little more than frantic heartbeats and raw sensation.

Briggs pushes up my skirt, his hands stroking my thighs while his lips move up my leg as though he's terrified I'll vanish if he misses a single inch. His stubble scrapes across my skin, and the rough friction sends heat racing beneath the surface.

Ashby's hands find their way underneath my shirt. He eases it up upward inch by inch, drawing the anticipation out until every nerve feels stretched tight. I want all of them at once.

I want to curl around them, slip between them, bury myself inside every space they leave open. Since I can't, I give myself over and let them devour me.

Torin slides his hand over my heart, his palm flat and firm against my chest, as though he's trying to ease the frantic pace beneath it.

Then he kisses me again.

Deeper. Hungrier.

Every brush of his mouth feels packed with restraint barely held in place, every pause carrying the threat of what comes next. I could stay here forever, wedged between them with nowhere to go and no desire to escape. If forever isn't possible, I'd settle for the next ten heartbeats.

Ashby's mouth burns against my neck. His tongue traces a path to my pulse before he sucks hard enough to leave a mark. I arch into him with a gasp, chasing the sensation. His name slips from my lips, a soft plea, begging him never to stop.

A shudder runs through him into me, crashing into every place we're touching, and the realization hits hard enough to steal my breath.

He's every bit as desperate as I am.

Torin's thumb brushes along my jaw while he kisses me, patient while the rest of me feels like its unraveling. Then his tongue finds the spot behind my teeth that makes my toes curl, and desire washes over me like a tsunami.

I want to wrap my legs around his waist and pull him closer until there's no space left between us. I want to fuse us together so completely that hunger and flesh and bone mesh into one. I want to climb beneath his skin, make a home there, and learn every way he'll let me burn him.

Briggs presses his face against my thighs, his fingertips brushing tantalizingly against the thin barrier of my panties, where heat and moisture is already pooling. Cautious at the start, then increasingly reckless, he uses his tongue and teeth to trace intention across my skin.

I don't have any frame of reference for this.

The way all three of them look at me leaves me dizzy and flushed all over with heat.

They touch me as though I'm precious, yet every glance carries the promise of ruin. Torin's mouth works against mine, hot and consuming, unpicking me from the inside out until I can barely swallow around the emotion clogging my throat.

My blouse disappears first, then my bra, and soft mouths and hard hands move with surprising gentleness over my breasts and shoulders. Briggs lifts my hips and slides my skirt down along with my panties, then parts my legs. The hungry look in his eyes as he gazes on my exposed folds almost makes me come then and there. Every inch of me feels alive beneath their attention. I want their mouths on me. I want their marks. When Torin sinks his teeth into the curve of my neck, I jerk at the sting but lean back against him, moaning at the delicious torture. He immediately follows the bite with his tongue, soothing the spot before pressing a kiss against it.

I want them to take, so I give them more. I spread my legs farther apart and welcome their hunger.

Briggs's fingers work their way inside me. He starts gently, giving my body a chance to adjust, then pushes deeper. The needful ache burns through me, the sensation stripping everything else away, until all that's left is heat, tension, and want.